The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

396 GENIUS OF THE PAPACY.of great power there must have been in a system which hasstood so long, and has exercised so great an influence ; andif we can but succeed in rescuing these from the wreck, soto speak, we might employ them with advantage in the re-constructionof society and the re-edification of the Church ofGod. Whole cities have sometimes been built from theruins of colossal structures which time or violence hadthrown down : in like manner, we may take the stones andtimber of the Papacy, and consecrate them anew to the goodof society and the service of God. A new solution may beawaiting the ancient riddle,— " Out of the eater came forthmeat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."There is scarce a department of human knowledge onwhich the study of the Papacy does not throw light. Itaffords an amazing insight into the policy of Satan, its realauthor. It lays bare the innate depravity and the deceitfulworkings of the human heart ; for Popery is but the religionof fallen human nature. It shows what an amount ofmischief may grow out of a single evil principle, or out of agood one misapplied. It discloses to us the springs of error,and enables us to trace to the same source all errors, howeverdeep their disguises, various their names, or diversetheir forms ; and it teaches by contrast the simplicity, consistency,grandeur, and substantial oneness of the ti'uth.It shows, too, that no false system can be eternal ; that itcarries within itself the seeds of death ; and that neither thedefences of external power nor the sanctions of a venerableantiquity can save it from the death to which from its birthit is doomed. It has no self-renovating power ; and, grantingeven that it should be let alone from without, the atrophywithin would in due time consign it to its grave. But theimmorality which falsehood wants truth possesses. Its seeds,sown in the world by the author of Christianity, are indestructible; and though all should perish, and but one survive,that one seedling would in time burst the clod and renovatethe world. One atom of truth has more power in itthan a whole svstem of error. Wc live too near the Papacy